A letter sent by the First Imam of Islam on Government and Governing, sent prior to Maalik Al Ashtar's assignment (by Emir Ali, pbuh) to Egypt and subsequent poisoning (honey) of same (al Ashtaar) at the hands of the great betrayor of Islam, Muwaiya, son of Abu Sufyan who was the last of the Companions to accept Islam and even then, it was under duress (reportedly the son of Abu Sufyan although the details of his birth remain unknown):

[ An order to Maalik al-Ashtar. ] (The United States Declaration of Independence AND the Constitution are taken from this exact letter. Thomas Jefferson was a "monotheist" and is known to have hidden his sources on this one due to the oppression of Monotheism in Europe. It is very clear to anyone (exccept the most vicious anti muslims) that this pre-dates Colonial America by about.....er....1100 years solar time.))

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[ Maalik al-Ashtar was a famous companion of Imam Ali (a). He was the head of the Bani Nakha'i clan. He was a faithful disciple of Imam Ali (a). He was a brave warrior and had acted as a Commander-in-Chief of the armies of Imam Ali (a). His valour had earned him the title of "Fearless Tiger". Imam Ali (a) had specially taught him the principles of administration and jurisprudence. He venerated and loved Imam Ali (a) sincerely and earned Mu'awiya's enmity on that account. Mu'awiya had conspired against him and got him killed by his gang of hirelings. His untimely death deeply grieved Imam Ali (a) who, expressing his grief said: "He was to me what I was to the Holy Prophet (s)". The following instructions in the form of a letter were written to him by Imam Ali (a) who appointed him as the Governor of Egypt in place of Muhammad bin Abi Bakr:

This letter is a précis of the principles of administration and justice as dictated by Islam. It deals with the duties and obligations of rulers, their chief responsibilities, the question of priorities of rights and obligations, dispensation of justice, control over secretaries and subordinate staff; distribution of work and duties amongst the various branches of administration, their co-ordination with each other and their co-operation with the centre. In it Imam Ali (a) advises Maalik to combat corruption and oppression amongst the officers, to control markets and imports and exports, to curb evils of profiteering, hoarding, black-marketing. In it he has also explained stages of various classes in a society, the duties of the government towards the lowest class, how they are to be looked after and how their conditions are to be improved, the principle of equitable distribution of wealth and opportunities, orphans and their up-bringing, maintenance of the handicapped, crippled and disabled persons and substitutes in lieu of homes for the aged and the disabled.

Then he (a) discusses the army, of whom it should consist of and how the ignorant, ruthless and corrupt mercenaries should not be allowed to join the army as their profession. He lays great stress upon the honour and the nobility of volunteers who in time of need, offer their voluntary services to defend the Islamic State. Finally, he comments upon the rights of rulers over the ruled and of the ruled over the rulers.

There is a main central idea running all through these instructions, like one single thread out of which the cloth is woven, it is that of Allah . The regime is of Allah, the governors and the governed are both creatures of Allah, and their respective duties are laid down by Allah.

He expects each one of them to fulfil his obligations and to do his duties. The orphans and the depressed are the trust of Allah, the army is the army of Allah, whose soldiers should not behave like haughty and arrogant mercenaries but like honourable and noble knights, everyone is expected to do his duty to the best of his ability. He will be rewarded in Paradise according.

In short this letter is on one hand the Gospel of the principles of administration as taught by the Holy Qur'an, a code to establish a kind and benevolent rule, throwing light on various aspects of justice, benevolence and mercy, an order based on the ethics of Divine rulership where justice and mercy are shown to human beings irrespective of class, creed and colour, where poverty is neither a stigma nor a disqualification and where justice is not tainted with nepotism, favouritism, provincialism or religious fanaticism; and, on the other hand, it is a thesis on the higher values of morality.

The famous Arab Christian, jurist, poet and philosopher Abdul Masih Antaaki who died sometime in the beginning of the 20th Century while discussing this letter writes that it is a far superior and better code than the one handed down by Moses and Hamurabi, it explains what a human administration should be like, how it is to be carried out and it justifies the claims of Muslims that Islam wants to introduce a Divine administration of the people for the people and by the people and it wants a ruler to rule not to please himself but to bring happiness to the ruled and no religion before Islam tried to achieve this end, Ali (a) should be congratulated for having introduced these principles during his rule and for have written them down for the posterity. ]

IN THE NAME OF ALLAH, THE BENEFICENT, THE MERCIFUL.


These are the orders issued by the creature of Allah, Ali, the son Abu Taalib (a) to Maalik, the son of Ashtar when he appointed Maalik as the Governor of Egypt to collect Zakat there, to combat the enemies of Islam and Egypt, to work for the welfare of its people and to look after its prosperity.

I order you, Maalik, always to keep the fear of Allah in your mind, to give priority to His worship and to give preference to obeying His Commands over every other thing in life, to carefully and faithfully follow the commandments and interdictions as are given by the Holy Book and the traditions of the Holy Prophet (s) because the success of a man to attain happiness in this world and in the next depends upon these qualities, and a failure to achieve these attributes brings about total failure in both the worlds.

I order you to use your head, heart, hands and tongue to help the creatures of Allah because the Almighty Allah holds Himself responsible to help those who sincerely try their best to help Him. Allah has further ordered you to keep your desires under control, to keep yourself under restraint when extravagant and inordinate yearnings and cravings try to drive you towards vice and wickedness because usually your 'self' tries to incite and drag you towards infamy and damnation unless the Merciful Lord comes to your help.

Let it be known to you, Maalik, that I am sending you as a governor to a country which has seen many regimes before this. Some of them were benign, sympathetic and good, while others were tyrannical, oppressive and cruel. People will judge your regime as critically as you have studied the activities of other regimes and they will criticize you in the same way as you have censured or approved other rulers.

You must know that a good and virtuous man is known and recognized by the good that is said about him and the praise which Allah has destined him to receive from others. Therefore, make your mind the source and fountain-head of good thoughts, good intentions and good deeds. This can only be attained by keeping a strict control on your desires and yearnings, however much they may try to incite and coerce you. Remember that the best way to do justice to your inner self and to keep it out of harm is to restrain it from vice and from things which the 'self' inordinately and irrationally desires.

Maalik! You must create in your mind kindness, compassion and love for your subjects. Do not behave towards them as if you are a voracious and ravenous beast and as if your success lies in devouring them.

Remember, Maalik, that amongst your subjects there are two kinds of people: those who have the same religion as you have; they are brothers to you, and those who have religions other than that of yours, they are human beings like you. Men of either category suffer from the same weaknesses and disabilities that human beings are inclined to, they commit sins, indulge in vices either intentionally or foolishly and unintentionally without realizing the enormity of their deeds. Let your mercy and compassion come to their rescue and help in the same way and to the same extent that you expect Allah to show mercy and forgiveness to you.

Maalik! You must never forget that if you are a ruler over them than the caliph is the ruler over you and Allah is the Supreme Lord over the caliph. And the reality is that He has appointed you as the governor and tested you through the responsibility of this rulership over them.

Never think of raising yourself to such a false prestige that you can declare war against Allah because you cannot ward off His Wrath and you can never be free from the need of His Mercy and Compassion.

Do not feel ashamed to forgive and forget. Do not hurry over punishments and do not be pleased and do not be proud of your power to punish. Do not get angry and lose your temper quickly over the mistakes and failures of those over whom you rule. On the contrary, be patient and sympathetic with them. Anger and desire of vengeance are not going to be of much help to you in your administration.

Never say to yourself, "I am their Lord, their ruler and all in all over them and that I must be obeyed submissively and humbly" because such a thought will unbalance your mind, will make you vain and arrogant, will weaken your faith in religion and will make you seek support of any power other than that of Allah . If you ever feel any pride or vanity on account of your sway and rule over your subjects then think of the supreme sway and rule of the Lord over the Universe, the extent of His creations, the supremacy of His Might and Glory, His Power to do things which you cannot even dream of doing and His control over you which is more dominating than that which you can ever achieve over anything around you. Such thoughts will cure your mental weakness, will keep you away from vanity and rebellion (against Allah), will reduce your arrogance and haughtiness and will take you back to the sanity which you had foolishly deserted.

Take care never to think of bringing yourself at par with Allah, never to think of matching your power with Him and contesting His Glory and ever to pretend that you possess might and power like Him because the Mighty Lord will always humble pitiless tyrants and will degrade all pretenders of His Power and Might.

So far as your own affairs or those of your relatives and friends are concerned take care that you do not violate the duties laid down upon you by Allah and do not usurp the rights of mankind, be impartial and do justice to them because if you give up equity and justice then you will certainly be a tyrant and an oppressor. And whoever tyrannizes and oppresses the creatures of Allah, will earn enmity of Allah along with the hatred of those whom he has oppressed; and whoever earns the Wrath of Allah loses all chances of salvation and he has no excuse to offer on the Day of Judgement.

Every tyrant and oppressor is an enemy of Allah unless he repents and gives up oppression. Remember, Maalik! that there is nothing in this world more effective to turn His Blessings into His Wrath quicker than to insist upon oppression over His creatures because the Merciful Allah will always hear the prayers of those who have been oppressed and He will give no chance to oppressors.

You must always appreciate and adopt a policy which is neither too severe nor too lenient, a policy which is based upon equity will be largely appreciated. Remember that the displeasure of common men, the have-nots and the depressed persons more overbalances than the approval of important persons, while the displeasure of a few big people will be excused by the Lord if the general public and the masses of your subjects are happy with you.

Remember, Maalik! that usually these big personages are mentally the scum of the human society, they are the people who will be the worst drag upon you during your moments of peace and happiness, and the least useful to you during your hours of need and adversity, they hate justice the most, they will keep on demanding more and more out of the State resources and will seldom be satisfied with what they receive and will never be obliged for the favour shown to them if their demands are justifiable refused, they will never accept any reasonable excuse or any rational argument and when the time changes, you will never find them staunch, faithful and loyal.

While the common men, the poor and apparently the less important section of your subjects are the pillars of Islam, they are the real assemblage of Muslims and the power and defensive force against the enemies of Islam. Keep your mind on their affairs, be more friendly with them and secure their trust and goodwill.

But be careful in forming your contacts (whether with the most important persons or the commoners); keep such people away from you and think them to be the enemy of the State who are scandal-mongers and who try to find fault with others and carry on propaganda against them because everywhere people have weaknesses and failings and it is the duty of the government to overlook (minor) shortcomings. You must not try to go in search of those weaknesses which are hidden from you, leave them to Allah, and about those weaknesses which come to your notice, you must try to teach them how to overcome them. Try not to expose the weaknesses of the people and Allah will conceal your own weaknesses which you do not want anybody to know.

Do not give cause to the people to envy each other (man against man, tribe against tribe or one section of the society against the other). Try to alleviate and root out mutual distrust and enmity from amongst your subjects.

Be fair, impartial and just in your dealings with all, individually and collectively and be careful not to make your person, position and favours act as sources of malice. Do not let any such thing or such person come near to you who does not deserve your nearness and your favour. Never lower your dignity and prestige.

Remember that backbiters and scandal-mongers belong to a mean and cunning group, though they pretend to be sincere advisers. Do not make haste to believe the news they bring and do not heed to their advice.

Do not accept the advice of misers, they will try their best to keep you away from acts of kindness and from doing good to others. They will make you frightened of poverty.

Similarly do not allow cowards to act as your advisers because they will make you timid in enforcing your orders, will scare you from handling important affairs boldly and will make your enterprises and invasions timid and timorous attempts. At the same time avoid greedy and covetous persons who would aspire to the position of acting as your counsellor because he will teach you how to exploit the community and how to oppress people to get their wealth. Remember that miserliness, cowardice and greed appear to be different wicked qualities but they all arise from the same evil mentality of having no faith and no trust in Allah.

Your worst ministers will be the men who had been ministers to the despotic rulers before you and who had been a party o atrocities committed by them. Such persons should not be taken into your confidence and should not be trusted because they have aided sinners and have assisted tyrants and cruel rulers.

In their stead you can comfortably find persons who are equally wise and learned but who have not developed sinful and criminal mentalities, who have neither helped the tyrants in their tyrannies nor have they assisted them to carry on their sinful deeds. Such persons will prove the least troublesome to you. They will be the most helpful. They will sincerely sympathise with you. If you take them in your confidence they will sever their connections with your opponents. Keep such people with you as your companions in your informal company as well as in official gatherings in audience. From amongst such honest and humane companions and ministers some would receive your fullest confidence and trust. They are those who can always speak out the bitter truth to you and unreservedly and without fear of your status, can refuse to assist you or associate with you in the deeds which Allah does not like His good creatures to commit.

Select honest, truthful and pious people as your companions. Train them not to flatter you and not to seek your favour by false praises because flattery and false praises create vanity and conceit and they make a man lose sight of his real self and ignore his duties.

You should not treat good and bad people alike because in this way you will be discouraging good persons and at the same time emboldening the wicked to carry on their wickedness. Everyone should receive the treatment which his deeds make him deserve.

Try carefully to realize that a ruler can create goodwill in the minds of his subjects and can make them faithful and sincere to him only when he is kind and considerate to them, when he reduces their troubles, when he does not oppress them and when he never asks for things which are beyond their power.

These are the principles which you should keep in mind and act upon. Let your attitude be such that they do not lose faith in you because a good faith on their part will reduce many troubles of administration and will relieve you of many worries and anxieties. And so far as your confidence and trust is concerned, let it rest with those people whom you have tested in difficulties and whom you have befriended, but you should always mistrust those people whom you have wronged or who have proved themselves undeserving, inefficient or unfaithful.

Do not give up those practices and do not break those rules which good Muslims have evolved or introduced before you, which have created unity and amity among the various sections of the society and which have benefited the masses.

Do not break them and do not introduce innovations because if you do away with those good rules and traditions, the reward of having introduced them will go to those who evolved them and the punishment of having despoiled them will be your lot.

You must know, Maalik, that the people over whom you rule are divided into classes and grades and the prosperity and welfare of each class of the society individually and collectively are so interdependent upon the well-being of the other classes that the whole set-up represents a closely woven net and reciprocal aspect. One class cannot exist peacefully, cannot live happily and cannot work without the support and good wishes of the other.

Amongst them there are the soldiers of the army of Allah who defend His cause, the next class is that of the secretaries of the State to whom duties of writing out and issuing special or general orders are assigned, the third group is of the judges and magistrates to administer justice, the fourth is of officers who maintain law and order and guard the peace and prosperity of the country. Then there are common men, the Muslims who pay the taxes levied by the government, and non-Muslims who pay the taxes levied by the government, and non-Muslims who pay tribute to the State (in lieu of taxes). Then comes the class of men who carry on various professions and trades and the last but not the least are the poor and the have-nots who are considered as the lowest class of the society. The Merciful Allah has fixed rights and duties of each one of them. They have been either mentioned in His Book or explained through the instructions of the Holy Prophet (s). A complete code of them is preserved with us.

As far as the soldiers are concerned, they are by the commands of Allah a fortress and stronghold to guard and defend the subjects and the State. They are the ornaments of the ruler and the country. They provide power and protection to the religion. They propagate and preserve peace among mankind. In fact, they are the real guardians of peace and through them good internal administration can be maintained. The upkeep and maintenance of an army depends upon the taxes collected by the State out of which Allah has fixed for them a share. With this amount they provide for their requirements, maintain themselves and their arms in sound position to defend the religion and the cause of justice.

The army and the common men (common citizens who pay taxes or tributes) are two important classes, but in a Welfare State their well-being cannot be guaranteed without proper functioning and preservation of the other classes, the judges and magistrates, the secretaries of the State and the officers of various departments who collect various revenues, maintain law and order as well as preserve peace and amity among the diverse classes of the society. They also guard the rights and privileges of the citizens and look to the performances of various duties by individuals and classes. And the prosperity of this whole set-up depends upon the traders and industrialists. They act as a medium between the consumers and the suppliers. They collect the requirements of the society. They exert to provide goods. They open up shops, markets and trading centres. Thus providing the consumers with their necessities, they relieve the citizens of the need of running after their requisites of life.

Then comes the class of the poor and the disabled persons. It is absolutely necessary that they should be looked after, helped and well-provided for. The Merciful Allah has explained the ways and means of maintaining and providing for each of these classes. And everyone of this class has the right upon the ruler of the State that at least minimum necessities for its well-being and contented living are provided.

Remember, Maalik that Almighty Allah will not absolve any ruler from his obligations unless he sincerely tries his best to discharge his duties, invokes Allah to help him in their performance, remains steadfast and diligent on the path of truth and justice and bears all this whether the performance of these duties is congenial or hateful to him.

So far as the army is concerned its chief and commander should be a person who is most sincere and faithful to Allah, to the Holy Prophet (s) and to your Imam who is most pious, who is famous for his forbearance, clemency and gentleness, who is neither short-tempered nor does he get angry quickly, who sympathetically treats sincere excuses and accepts apologies, who is kind and compassionate with the weak, but severe against the strong and the powerful, who has no vindictiveness which might lead to violence or any inferiority complex or weak-mindedness which makes them helpless and dejected. To find and select such persons you should have contacts with pious and noble families with high ideals and exalted traditions, families well-known for their bravery and courage and generosity and magnanimity. They are the people who may be considered as sources of magnificence and sublimity of character and fountain-heads of piety and good deeds.

When you have found and selected such persons then keep an eye over them and watch them as parents watch their children so that you may find out if there appears any change in their behaviour. Treat them kindly and sympathetically. Do not grudge highest considerations to them (if they rightly deserve) and do not refuse small mercies. This kind of treatment will create reciprocal tendencies in them and they will trust you and will be faithful to you. Under the impression that you have paid enough attention to their major necessities and wants, do not close your eyes to their minor requirements and needs because small favours often bear better fruits though careful attention to major necessities is very important. Among the military officers those should receive your highest respect and consideration who pay most attention to the needs of the soldiers under their command who come forward to help the soldiers with their personal means and property so that the soldiers may lead a happy and contented life and may have full confidence of the future of their families and children.

If the soldiers are thus satisfied and are free from anxieties and care then they will bravely and wholeheartedly face the conflicts. Your constant attention towards the officers and soldiers will make them love you more and more.

The thing which should most gladden the heart of a ruler is the fact that his State is being ruled on the principles of equity and justice and that his subjects love him. And your subjects will only love you when they have no grievance against you. Their sincerity and loyalty will be proved if they gather around you to support your government, when they accept your authority without considering it an unbearable burden on their heads and when they do not secretly wish your rule to come to an end. So let them have as many justifiable hopes in you as they can and fulfil as many as you reasonably can. Speak well of those who deserve your praise. Appreciate the good deeds done by them and let these good actions be known publicly.

The correct and timely publicity of noble actions and golden deeds creates more zeal in the minds of the brave and emboldens the cowards and the weaklings. You must know and realize the good deeds done by every single individual so that the credit of noble deeds done by one may not be given to another. Do not underestimate and underpay the good work done. Similarly do not overpay a work simply because it has been done by a very important person and do not let his position and prestige be the cause of overvaluation of the merit of his work and at the same time do not undervalue a great deed if it is done by a very ordinary person or a commoner. Let equity, justice and fairplay be your motto.

When you are faced with problems which you cannot solve or with a difficult situation from which you cannot escape or when uncertain and doubtful circumstances confuse and perplex you, then turn to Allah and the Holy Prophet (s) because Allah has thus ordered those whom He wants to guide. The way to turn to Allah is to act diligently according to the clear and explicit orders given in His Holy Book and to the turn to the Holy Prophet (s) means to follow those of his orders about which there is no doubt and ambiguity and which have been generally accepted to be correctly recorded.

So far as dispensing of justice is concerned, you have to be very careful in selecting officers for the same. You must select people of excellent character and high calibre and with meritorious records. They must possess the following qualifications: Abundance of litigations and complexity of cases should not make them lose their temper.

When they realize that they have committed a mistake in judgement they should not insist on it by trying to justify it. When truth is made clear to them or when the right path opens up before them, they should not consider it below their dignity to correct the mistake made or to undo the wrong done by them. They should not be corrupt, covetous or greedy. They should not be satisfied with ordinary enquiry or scrutiny of a case, but should scrupulously go through all the pros and cons, they must examine every aspect of the problem carefully, and whenever and wherever they find doubtful and ambiguous points, they must stop, go through further details, clear the points, and only then proceed with their decisions. They must attach the greatest importance to reasoning, arguments and proofs. They should not get tired of lengthy discussions and arguments. They must exhibit patience and perseverance in scanning the details, in testing the points presented as true, in sifting facts from fiction and when truth is revealed to them they must pass their judgements without fear, favour or prejudice.

They should not develop vanity and conceit when compliments and praises are showered upon them. They should not be mislead by flattery and cajolery. But unfortunately they are few persons having such characteristics. After you have selected such men to act as your judges, make it a point to go through some of their judgements and to check their proceedings. Pay them handsomely so that their needs are fully satisfied and they are not required to beg or borrow or resort to corruption. Give them such a prestige and position in your State that none of your courtiers or officers can overlord them or bring harm to them. Let judiciary be above every kind of executive pressure or influence, above fear or favour, intrigue or corruption. Take every particular care of this aspect because before your appointment this State was under the sway of corrupt, time-serving and wealth-grasping opportunists who were lewd, greedy and vicious and who wanted nothing out of a State but a sinful consent of amassing wealth and pleasures for themselves.

Then come the officers of your State. You must supervise their work. They must be appointed after a careful scrutiny of their capabilities and characters. These appointments must be made originally on probation without any kind of favouritism being shown or influence being accepted otherwise tyranny, corruption and misrule will reign in your State. While selecting your officers take care to select experienced and honourable persons, members of respectable families who had served Islam during its early days because these are usually of noble character and good repute. They are not greedy and cannot be easily bribed. They mostly have before them the ultimate result of their thoughts and their deeds. Keep them also well-paid so that they may not be tempted to lower their standard of morality and may not misappropriate the cash of the State which they hold in their trust and if after being paid handsomely they prove dishonest, then you will be right to punish them. Therefore keep a careful watch over their system of work and rule.

You may also appoint trustworthy and honest men to keep a watch over the activities of these officers. The knowledge that they are being watched secretly will keep them away from dishonesty, misrule, malpractice and tyrannizing the subjects. Protect your government from dishonest officers. If you find any of them dishonest and your confidential intelligence service submits acceptable proofs of his dishonesty, then you must punish him. This may be corporal punishment besides dismissal from service and taking back from him all which he has dishonestly collected. He must be humiliated and must be made to realize the infamy of his wicked deeds. His humiliation and punishment must be given publicly so that it may serve as a lesson and a deterrent to others.

So far as collection of land revenues and taxes are concerned you must always keep in view the welfare of the tax-payers which is of primary importance than the taxes themselves because these taxes and the tax-payers are the original sources on which the welfare of your State and its subjects depend.

A State really lives upon the revenues collected from the tax-payers. Therefore, more importance should be attached to the fertility of land than to the collection of taxes because actual taxable capacity of people rests upon the fertility of the land. The ruler, who does not pay attention to the prosperity of his subjects and fertility of the land but concentrates only on collection of revenues, lays waste the land and consequently ruins the State and brings destruction to the creatures of Allah. His rule cannot last for long.

If the tax-payers complain to you of the heavy incidence to taxation, of any accidental calamity, of the vagaries of the monsoons, of the recession of the means of irrigation, of floods or destruction of their crops on account of excessive rainfall and if their complaints are true, then reduce their taxes. This reduction should be such that it provides them opportunities to improve their conditions and eases them of their troubles.

Decrease in State-income due to such reasons should not depress you because the best investment for a ruler is to help his subjects at the time of their difficulties. They are the real wealth of a country and any investment on them even in the form of reduction of taxes, will be returned to the State in the shape of the prosperity of its cities and improvement of the country at large. At the same time you will be in a position to command and secure their love, respect and praises along with the revenues. Will that not be a lasting happiness?

Not only this, but your benign rule and humane treatment will so affect them that they will come to your help at the time of your difficulties and you will be able to rely on their support. Your kindness, your clemency and your justice will be a kind of moral training to them, and the contented, happy and prosperous life, for which they will be grateful to you, will be the best support, strongest protection and the greatest treasury for you.

Later if such circumstances arrive that you find yourself in need of their support, their help, their confidence, their wealth and their man-power, then they will have no grudge against you.

Remember, Maalik! If a country is prosperous and if its people are well-to-do then it will happily and willingly bear any burden.

The poverty of the people is the actual cause of the devastation and ruination of a country and the main cause of the poverty of the people is the desire of its ruler and officers to amass wealth and possessions whether by fair or foul means. They are afraid of losing their posts or positions and sway or rule and want to make the most during the shortest time at their disposal. They never learn any lesson from the history of nations and never pay any attention to the commands of Allah.

You will also have to be very careful about your secretaries. You should entrust your work only to those who are the best among them.

Specially the affairs which are of confidential nature and which deal with secrets, and the security of the State should be entrusted only to men of noble character because men who are intoxicated with power, position and prestige carry on propaganda and speak against the government in public, they openly misbehave with you and consider themselves so important as to ignore you or your orders in financial transactions essential to the State, they avoid placing necessary papers before you or attending to important correspondence.

Particular care should be taken that when the officers make contracts on behalf of the government or sign agreements, these contracts and agreements are not defective or harmful to the State, if they are negotiating any treaties and alliances they do not overlook or forsake the interests of the State or if they find the State in a weak and embarrassing position on account of unfavourable terms of treaties or due to intrigues, they should be able to find sensible ways out of them. See that they know and realize their proper place and rank, because he who does not realize his place and position will never understand those of others.

One more thing about these officers: You must remember not to select them for very important posts and not to trust them completely simply because you have found them honest, diligent, trustworthy and intelligent and have formed a good opinion about them because there are some people who, when it suits them, pretend honesty, diligence and fidelity and can put on the garb of piety and virtue and thus find their ways in the hearts of the rulers, though actually they are neither honest nor diligent nor wise nor sagacious. Therefore, you must always look to the record or reputation of the services of such men during previous regimes; more importance should be attached to their good reputation. This kind of selection and supervision will prove that you are faithful to Allah and that you wish your Imam well.

Thus you must appoint one officer as the Head of each important branch of your government. He should have knowledge and wisdom enough to cope successfully with all the intricate problems of his department and should be diligent enough to cope with extensive work.

Remember well that if there is any defect in your officers and you are tolerating it, then you and only you are responsible for all those evils.

I want to advise you about your businessmen and industrialists. Treat them well, and order your officers to follow the same policy.

There may be local businessmen carrying on their trade in certain places or those who send their merchandise from one place to another. There may even be those who import and export goods. Similarly there may be industrialists and manufacturers as well as industrial labour or men engaged in the handicrafts. They all deserve sympathy, protection and good treatment.

They all are the sources of wealth to the country. They provide goods for the consumers. Most of these traders carry and convey these goods from across deserts, seas and over open lands and mountains, their consignments are brought from distant lands, often from places which are not easy to approach and where usually people do not care or do not dare to go. These businessmen are usually peace-loving people, not given to mischievous disturbances and seditious fomentation. You must look after their interest and protect them whether they are trading in your cities or towns or whether they are travelling over the countries carrying goods from place to place.

One more thing about these traders and industrialists. While treating them most sympathetically you must keep an eye over there activities as well.

You know they are usually stingy misers, intensely self-centered and selfish, suffering from the obsession of grasping and accumulating wealth.

They often hoard their goods to get more profit out of them by creating scarcity and by indulging in black-marketing. Such a condition is extremely injurious to the public on one hand and disgraceful to the ruler on the other.

You must put a stop to all such practices because the Holy Prophet (s) has explicitly prohibited such practices. Remember that trade should go on between the buyers and sellers according to correct measures and weights and on such reasonable terms that neither the consumers nor the suppliers should have to face losses. But even with all the sympathetic treatments accorded to them and with all the facilities provided to them, if the traders and industrialists carry on hoarding and black-marketing, then you must punish them according to the intensity of their crime.

Then I want to caution you about the poor. Fear Allah about their conditions and you attitude towards them. They have no support, no resources and no opportunities. They are poor, they are destitute and many of them are cripples and unfit for work. Some of them come out begging and some (who maintain self-respect) do not beg, but their conditions speak of their distress, poverty, destitution and wants. For the sake of Allah, Maalik, protect them and their rights. He has laid the responsibility of this upon your shoulders. You must fix a share for them from Baytul Mal (the Government Treasury). Besides this reservation in cash, you must also reserve a share in kind of crops etc. from government granaries in cities where food-grains are stored as are cultivated on State-owned land because in these storage the share of those living far away from any particular city is equal to the share of those living nearby.

Let me remind you once again that you are made responsible for guarding the rights of the poor people and for looking after their welfare. Take care that the conceit of your position and vanity of wealth may not deceive you to lose sight of such a grave and important responsibility. Yours is such an important post that you cannot claim immunity from the responsibility of even minor errors of commission or omission with an excuse that you were engrossed in the major problems of the State which you have solved diligently.

Therefore, be very careful of the welfare of the poor people. Do not be arrogant and vain against them. Remember that you have to take particular care of those who cannot reach you, whose poverty-stricken and disease-ridden sight may be hateful to you, and whom society treats with disgust, detestation and contempt. You should be a source of comfort, love and respect to them. Appoint a respectable, honest and pious person - a person who fears Allah and who can treat them honourably, order him to find out everything about them and to submit a report to you.

Then treat these poor people in such a way that on the Day of Judgement you can plead your case successfully before Allah because of all classes of your subjects this class deserves more of your attention, sympathy and fair-deal.

Though everyone of these poor persons deserves your sympathy and you will have to do justice to His cause to achieve His favour, yet you should pay more attention to young orphans and old cripples. They neither have any support nor can they conveniently come out begging. They cannot reach you; therefore, you must reach them.

Remember that the fulfillment of this obligation and duty is considered as a tiresome burden by most of the rulers but to those who desire to achieve His Blessings and to enter into His Realm, even this work seems light and congenial. They bear it happily, dutifully and sincerely. They find pleasures in it and they believe in the promise made by Allah.

Out of your hours of work, fix a time for the complainants and for those who want to approach you with their grievances. During this time you should do no other work but hear them and pay attention to their complaints and grievances. For this purpose you must arrange public audience for them during this audience, for the sake of Allah, treat them with kindness, courtesy and respect. Do not let your army and police be in the audience hall at such times so that those who have grievances against your regime may speak to you freely, unreservedly and without fear.

All this is a necessary factor of your rule because I have often heard the Holy Prophet (s) saying, "That nation or regime, where that rights of the depressed, destitute and suppressed are not guarded and where the mighty and powerful persons are not forced to accede these rights, cannot achieve salvation". You must remember that in those audiences the most common men will gather. therefore, if you find them misbehaving, becoming unmannerly or if you feel that their talk is irrelevant, tolerate them; do not be rude and do not insult them, so that Allah may be kind and merciful to you and may reward you for obeying His commands explicitly. Treat them courteously, hear their grievances patiently and if you are forced to reject their demands then reject them in such a way that your rejection may please them as much as your grants.

Then there are certain duties which only you will have to perform and which none of your officers can carry out. Among them are replies to the letters of your commissioners and governors and are beyond the jurisdiction or preview of your secretaries. If you find that your officers are not attending as much to the complaints of the public as they should, then you should personally attend to them. You must finish a day's work on that day only because each day will bring its own special work for you. Reserve your best time for prayers to Allah, though every work of the State is the work of Allah, especially, if you are sincere and honest, and if your subjects are happy with your rule and are safe from your oppression.

Among those duties that you are to perform diligently must be your daily prayers. These should be offered sincerely and persistently. You must fix times for this during days and nights. You must tax your bodily strength for this duty though it may tire you. Your observance of prayers should be sincere and faultless and should neither be so long as to tire out those who follow you in these prayers nor so short as to be faulty and defective because amongst those who follow you during the prayers, there may be some sick persons, while others may have to attend to some important work. When the Holy Prophet (s) sent me to Yemen I asked him how to lead the prayers. He advised me, "Offer prayers like a weak and old person and be kind to the faithful" (so that weak and old persons may follow your prayers easily and happily).

You must take care not to cut yourself off from the public. Do not place a curtain of false prestige between you and those over whom you rule. Such pretensions and show of pomp and pride are in reality manifestations of inferiority complex and vanity. The result of such an attitude is that you remain ignorant of the conditions of your subjects and of the actual cases of the events occurring in the State.

You will fail to realize comparative importance of events taking place and may attach great significance to minor events and may slip over important facts, similarly you may attach importance to mediocre or insignificant people and may ignore real men of consequence; and what is more, you may lose the power of distinction between good and bad and may take one for the other or hopelessly mix up the two. After all a ruler is as much a human being as any other man and he may remain ignorant of facts of which his officers want to keep him in the dark (and on which the public may throw light). Thus truth may get mixed up with falsehood and may not be distinguished because there are no birthmarks on the forehead of truth that it may be easily differentiated from falsehood, one has to search for facts and sift realities from fictions, only then can one reach the truth. Think for yourself, there are only two categories of rulers and you may belong to one of them.

You may either be a pious, sincere and diligent ruler, doing the right thing at the right moment and following the principles of justice and equity and you may be protecting rights of others and doing your best to fulfil your obligations, in that case why hide from the public, why draw a curtain around yourself! Or you may be a miser refusing to be generous to anyone, in that case people will gradually come to know of this trait of your character and will gradually give up asking for favours from you but do not overlook the fact that most of their demands will have nothing to do with your private purse, they will be about the rights of people, obligations of the State, complaints against the State, oppressions, and solicitations of justice, then why try to avoid hearing these requests!

You should never overlook the fact that around the rulers there usually are certain privileged persons (relatives and friends). They may often try to take advantage of their status and may resort to selfishness, intrigues, fraud, corruption and oppression. If you find such people around you then do away with them (however closely connected they may be with you), immediately bring an end to the scandal and clear your surroundings of all such moral and spiritual filth.

You must never give lands in permanent lease with all proprietary and ownership rights to your friends and relatives. You must never allow them to take possession of the source of water-supply or lands which have special utility for the communes. If they get possession of such holdings they will oppress others to derive undue benefits and thus gather all the fruits for themselves leaving for you a bad reputation in this world and punishment in the next.

Be fair in dispensing justice. Punish those who deserve punishment even though he may be your near relation or a close friend and even if such an action may give you pangs of sorrow and grief. Bear such a sorrow patiently and hope for Divine reward. I assure you this will bear good fruits.

If on account of your strict measures people get suspicious of your behaving like a tyrant and oppressor, then come out openly before them and explain to them the reasons of your actions and let them see the facts for themselves and realize the truth. This will give training to your mind, will be an act of kindness to the subjects and the confidence thus reposed in them will make them support justice and truth while you will achieve the end you have in view of obtaining their support in the cause of truth.

If your enemy invites you to a Peace Treaty that will be agreeable to Allah, then never refuse to accept such an offer because peace will bring rest and comfort to your armies, will relieve you of anxieties and worries, and will bring prosperity and affluence to your people. But even after such treaties be very careful of the enemies and do not place too much confidence in their promises because they often resort to Peace Treaty to deceive and delude you and take advantage of your negligence, carelessness and trust. At the same time be very careful, never break your promise with your enemy, never forsake the protection or support that you have offered to him, never go back upon your words, and never violate the terms of the treaty. You must even risk your life to fulfil the promises given and the terms settled because of all the obligations laid by Almighty Allah upon man (in respect to other men) there is none so important as to keep one's promises when made.

Though people may differ in their religions and ideologies and may have divergent views upon various problems of State, yet they all agree that promises when made must be fulfilled. Even the heathens take care to keep the promises made among themselves because they have seen and realised the evil effects of breaking promises. Therefore, take very particular care of promises made, never go back upon the words given, never go into the offensive without previously challenging and giving an ultimatum. Deception and fraud even against your enemy is a deception against Allah and none but a wretched sinner would dare do that.

Allah has given promises and treaties the high rank of being messengers of peace and prosperity and through His Kindness and Mercy has made them a common desire (of keeping promises) in the minds of all men and a common requirement for all human beings. He has made them such a shelter and asylum that everybody desires to be under their protection.

Therefore, there should be no mental reservation, no fraud, no deception and no underlying meanings in between the lines when you make a promise or conclude a treaty. Do not use such words and phrases in your promises and treaties as have possibilities of being translated in more than one way or as may have various interpretations and many explanations, let there be no ambiguity in them, and let them be clear, precise and to the point. And when once a treaty has been finally concluded, do not try to take advantage of any ambiguous word or phrase in it. If you find yourself in a critical situation on account of the treaty made in the cause of Allah, then try to face the situation and bear the consequences bravely and do not try to back out of the terms that account, because to face such perplexing situations as may gain His Rewards and Blessings is better than to break your promises on that account and earn that about which you feel nervous and for which you will have to answer Allah and which may bring down His Wrath upon you in this world and damnation in the next.

Beware of the sin of shedding blood without religious justification and sanction because there is nothing quicker to bring down the Wrath of Allah, to take away His Blessings, to make you more deserving of His Wrath and to reduce the span of your life than to shed innocent blood. On the Day of Judgement Allah will first attend to sins of bloodshed carried out by man against man. Therefore, never try to strengthen your power, position and prestige by shedding innocent blood. Such murders instead of making your position strong will not only considerably weaken it but may also transfer your power totally, taking it away from you and entrusting it to somebody else.

If you have intentionally murdered a man then no excuse shall be acceptable to Allah or to me because punishment of such a crime is necessary.

And if you kill a man by mistake without any intention or motive of killing or while delivering legal penalties, your whip, sword or hand unintentionally and inadvertently deals a fatal blow because even a forcefully delivered slap or box on the ear may cause death, then do not, on account of your prestige and position, refuse paying the compensation to the heirs.

Beware and do not develop the trait of self-admiration and self-appreciation. Do not get conceited of the good points that you find in your good character or good deeds that you have done. Do not let flattery and cajolery make you vain and egoist. Remember that of all the cunning ruses of the devil to undo good deeds of the pious people and to affect their piety, flattery and false praises are the ones on which it relies the most.

Do not boast of the favours and kindnesses that you have done to your subjects and do not try to make them realise this, do not think too much of the good that you have done to them, and do not go back upon the promises made, all these three habits are very ugly features of one's character. The practice of boasting over the favours done undoes the good done, the habit of exaggerating and thinking very highly of our good actions will make us lose the guidance of Allah, and the habit of breaking one's promises is disliked both by Allah and by man. The Merciful Allah says, "It is most hateful in the sight of Allah, to say something and not to practice it." [ Qur'an, 61:3 ].

Do not be hasty and do not precipitate your decisions and actions, when the time comes for an action to be done, or a decision to be taken, then do not be lazy and do not waste time and do not show weakness. When you do not find a true way to do the thing on hand, then do not persist on the wrong way and when find a correct solution, then do not be lethargic in adopting it.

In short do everything at a proper time and in a proper way and keep everything in its proper place.

Do not reserve for yourself anything which is a common property of all and in which others have equal rights. Do not close your eyes from glaring malpractice of the officers, miscarriage of justice and misuse of rights because you will be held responsible for the wrong thus done to others. In the near future your wrong practices and maladministration will be exposed and you will be held responsible and punished for the wrong done to the helpless and oppressed people. Take care and keep control over you temper, your anger and your desire to be arrogant and vain. Take care of your hands when you are out to deliver punishment and of the sharpness of your tongue when you are saying harsh things. The best way to achieve this is not to be hasty in making remarks and to delay in delivering punishment so that you may keep your temper under control and are not overexcited.

And you cannot achieve this unless you constantly remember that you have to return to Allah and unless His fear overcomes every other sentiment.

You must always try to remember the good and useful things done in the past, activities of a just and benign regime, good deeds done by it, good laws promulgated, instructions of the Holy Prophet (s), commands of Allah given in His Holy Book and things that you have seen me doing or have heard me saying. Follow the good actions and advice found therein. Similarly, follow carefully the pieces of advice contained in these orders. Through them I have tried to teach you all that can be taught about a good regime. I have done my duty towards you so that you may not go astray and your mind may not crave for base desires. If it does then you will have no excuse before Allah.

I beseech Allah that by His Limitless Mercy and by His Supreme Might He may grant our prayers, that He may lead both of us to the Divine Guidance of achieving His Pleasure, of successfully pleading our cases before Him, justifying our deeds before man, of gaining good repute, of leaving good results of our benign and just rule with ever expanding prosperity and ever increasing welfare of the State and of meeting our ends as martyrs and pious persons, as our return is towards Him only.

May the peace of Allah be upon the Holy Prophet (s) and His chosen descendants.

On The Theosophy of Mind Control

I was just horrified to read one person's take on the Amish affair in which said person villified the Christian Right in order to lay Buddhist claim on the Amish. Ahem. What a bonehead.

http://www.moq.org/forum/DavidThomas/strawdogs.html

I wondered about the equality of souls. And the absence and denial of such a thing by those who seek to denegrate belief systems that do not fit in nicely with various forms of mind control.

The problems of engaging this sort of wreck into a solution are self evident as all those who "propagate" such ideologies are in fact, full of ideologies themselves or LACK of them (supposedly and this is the real problem in a nutshell: objectivity).

Who exactly, is entitled to this objectivity? Is any single mortal soul so very objective? The fiction writer Llosa ponders this and concludes that people MUST invent fictions (particularly Marxist but not limited to and including ALL forms of religion (that Llosa was exposed to anyway)). As well, Aunt Julia was written "in retrospect" of failed Marxist versus Roman Catholic overthrows in Latin America and the consequent "merge" towards a centrist view of any given observer of said political/moral crises. This of course (Llosa's commentaries) is written after the success of Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter among other novels. Fictions, in CONTEXT however, are successful not because they are necessary (as Llosa declares) but because they are sold. Like any given belief system might be sold. Like any soul might sell his own or might barter in the "organization" of souls. The failure or success rate of any given philosophy is disregarded when it is convenient for those who like to disregard such things, see it fit to do so. One might say this in the context also of Sayyed Nasrallah's claim to a "Divine Victory" and to the admission on the part of Israel of it's defeat. Sadly though, Israel isn't necessarily upset about committing war crimes but about LOSING A WAR. This of course, can lead to a myriad of results and one of those is the continued struggle for Zionism to lay claim to Souls. Christian to Right Wing to Buddhist to Muslim. They've no clue do they, what exactly has been lost. What has been lost is any claim to an ethical yardstick by which their so-called Religious (Zionism is notoriously atheistic but pretends to be Jewish when in fact, most Zionists are ethnocentric colonists in foreign lands i.e. Eastern European to the New Jersey-ites) context lays claim. Much as the Roman Catholic tradition loses any ability to debate its way out of a difference of opinion regarding such things as conversion, Virgin Births and crucifictions with both Rabbi and Imam.

Reminds me of motivational speakers and leaders. Where would they be without their sacred theosophies! Who on earth would they condemn and what model would they use to satisfy their cloaked "world views" which are nothing more than partisan politics and psychologies? How do they convert others to their milque-toast belief systems which condition the oppressed to just keep "taking it up the arse" and being peaceful about it...quietism as a Prophetic Mystery System is nothing more than that and lacks any single piece of proof regarding its validity in the arena of human concerns and oppressions.

http://www.sntp.net/behaviorism/behaviorism_history.htm

Which brings me to the word of Allah, "Qaallaam". Now, you cannot mess with certain things especially when those things come equipped with scientific proofs as the Quran does. It takes the work right out of thinking!

That in turn leads to the argument contained in the ego of any given soul. "I ought to be able to think through this," it says to me (or you). Most smart people and some dumb people too, like to think out loud and they love what they think (me too but mine is based in a *love of Islam and Allah and is strictly contained in those parameters which are not only mind boggling but mind bogglingly unending..new questions begged to be asked all the time you know like just what is the meaning of the Lie?)

Theo-sophism is exactly that:

A sophist trying to wriggle around in the theology of the selfishly inclined practioner of his own concoctions (ideologies springing from the minds of folks such as "Buddha" and "Marx" "Ben Gurion and Herzl" and those that develop their wiggly little strategems for identifying "the bad guys"). And the result is, more sophistry and widespread social anesthetism in sheep's gear and sometimes, violence against those who possess skills at RESISTING mind control..

*Recently, in Ha'retz, they wanted to perform an experiment in "debate" and the question was: What is right about Islam and why do muslims love it so much?

Well, unfortunately, because so many people in the world have been brainwashed so thoroughly, the only people that can understand the love of Islam and of Allah are those who practice it in the first place. The transference involved in "ideological" finger pointing is considered job number one for muslims in terms of defeating the heinous misrepresentation and ignorance of the universal value of Islam in the Western environment and in the context of Bush Hegemony because people like the bonehead above tend to lump all types of religious systems in one big basket and operate on them as if they know more than Allah. IN their own psychology it is called Transference and Counter-transference and it is VERY real in that it can be demonstrated but is not what ought to be followed as it is no more than human logic playing with the human soul and what makes each individual "different".

All things that are known, studied, cultured in labs and seen through the Hubble are created and exist prior to our giving them their value. That is one argument that simply cannot be won by mankind and therefore, Islam serves as a guide to those who have some time on their hands and enough intelligence to look a little beyond their own two noses on their two faces, the objective one (that cannot exist by virtue of it being contained in the brain which is susceptible to propaganda) and the subjective one involved in public posturing like the self righteous blather of the bonehead cited above..

All human speech is a form of propaganda. All, including my own. That I rely on the highest form of propaganda is the crux of this issue. But only the well read can understand the best parts of that argument or defend it as a means for seeking real peace in the world amongst a variety of people, sects and human problems.

What it boils down to in the end is:

Which system possesses the strongest proofs? And that my friend, in the modern world in which there are no more prophets or prophets performing miracles with the permission of Allah...leaves it to human reason. Science, historical fact and the intention of each human soul in the process aka the aspirations of all people of faith regardless of their sect.

That Feeling You Get

It was an act of congress
the wonderful autumn,
my hair is so shiny
in the aftermath.

The bottom of the house
was left standing
but the top
felt a bit breezy.

No more tomorrows
thank you, today
was enough
for a lifetime.

Do we wake up now?
A big fight the night before
reminded us of our togetherness
in the wee morning hours.

US Threat to Iran due to Iran's failure to comply
with Holocaust Theology, not Nuclear Weapons.

In Israel, the numbers of Jewish women converting to Islam doubled prior to Israel's hate inspired attack against the Lebanese people. I imagine that number will more than double now. In Ha'retz, there is open discussion regarding why muslims love Islam so much and "what is right" about Islam. Well, it isn't up to Israelis to determine what is right about the Quran anymore than it is legitimate to attack a country merely for questioning the historical events surrounding the "formation" of Israel aka the Imposition of Israel upon the Arabs:

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=108285



http://www.rense.com/general73/iwn.htm


"There is no week nor day nor hour when tyranny may not enter upon this country - if the people lose their confidence in themselves - and lose their roughness and spirit of defiance." - Walt Whitman

Iranian Journalists Tried in Courts/face death penalties:

http://www.zundelsite.org/english/debate/victims/index.html


Hmm. One must wonder about those court cases. You know, that show on which Ahmedinijad was interviewed, the aristocratic journalist known as "Anderson Cooper" (a convert to the truth apparently after his brother's suicide and his renouncement of personal wealth (not)) constantly badgered the Prez of Iran over the Holocaust and when he found himself speechless (because out of all the questions you could ask a Head of State, this journalist (CNN) chose to harangue him with questions about the Holocaust and the Iranian president chided him openly about the type of interview he was performing).....and when he (the elitist mouthpiece of CNN) floundered, the journalist seemed to stomp up and down and said, "Well at least we have freedom of the press!"

Fact is, Mr. Cooper didn't want answers. Not at all. He wanted to display a curious affection for the misinformation of the past half century...heh, like some other folks I know who tend to go on about things as if they were holder's of degrees in Hegel! Hegel this and Hegel that...is about the extent of that sort of knowledge. Who cares about the Hegelian straw man.

Does make one wonder....when you consider Israel has nuclear warheads AND triggers and has used lethal force against an entire nation (with democratically elected leaders)....why has no one suggested sanctions against Israel (on CNN, in the US media, etc.).

Perhaps that is what the Quran means when it talks about the mysterious "Lie" some transgressors are guilty of. I've always wondered about the Lie. I thought it was the murder scene called the Crucifiction...but now I truly do wonder if the Lie was this one. The lie in which Israel denies trading Jews for Land.

The disruption of this multi-generational and institutionalized cover-up is having major repurcussions on world peace. It is time people openly discussed the entire findings...and that is what Ahmedinijad is saying and by saying that, he is being threatened with GENOCIDE.

Man. Wonder what the Marshall Plan looks like for this one!

The Shi'i Tradition of establishing a leader's "history": Enta meen?

What is GWB's history? JFK assassination, the Hinkley assassination attempt among other things like being the descendent of Nazi/Zionist money launderers and an heir to the throne of those who threw two very large incindiary devices on the people of Japan after the war had already been more or less, won by the Allies.

What is Iran's history and the history of it's FREELY ELECTED presidents (like Ahmedinijad)?

Here, Iran declared NEUTRALITY in WWII and was caught between two definitive forces, Stalin and the "Allies". Wha? You betcha. No nuclear proliferation noticed however there is a distinct distaste and disgust for HYPOCRISY.

That is Iran's family lineage and it includes Mossadeq.....just another Lumumba I guess. So inconsequential to the average US citizen. Until now.

The White Genocide against the Native Americans and the expulsion of the indigenous tribes of Mexico from the southwest is just the LOCAL version of White Heiniosity. But it is used as some sort of thing that Americans are bludgeoned with routinely as if the current residents of Douglas and Nogales, AZ might address that travesty. Well...indeed. And they are...building the wall of China here. They don't feel a bit bad about it either. Forget trying to teach them something about Stalinist Russia, the bolsheviks and the mansheviks...that is just TOO DAMN MUCH to expect from the little sweet whipper snappers.

Iran in Context:

http://www.parstimes.com/history/historicalsetting.html#WWII

Condoleeza "Antoinette" Rice suggests: Let the Palestinians export tomatoes! (sometimes, in order to gain some peace of mind, I envision Condi in a Madame Tussaud Wax Museum, her face depicted in the twisted horror of the birth pangs she envisions for the impoverished of Gaza and of course, Lebanon, the entire "Trans-Jordan" really). No EPIDURAL for this chick!

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&article_id=75936&categ_id=17

How unsurprising a thing to hear from that PhD weilding fascist wannabe!


http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=75953

BEIRUT: Speaker Nabih Berri is more fearful for Lebanon today than he was during the recent month-long war with Israel. In an interview with Lebanese weekly Al-Afkar published Friday, Berri also warned Israel that fighting could be renewed. "We will resort to the arms of the resistance if Israel stalls in withdrawing from the Shebaa Farms," the speaker said.

Israel lost the recent war in Lebanon, he added, saying the Jewish state was "trying to create an internal political rift" in Lebanon to cover its defeat.

As for his relationship with Premier Fouad Siniora, Berri said there is "no conflict between us."

"We might differ on ideas but that doesn't mean we aren't on good terms," he added.

The speaker and premier had been at odds last month over Siniora's order for disciplinary actions against the head of General Security, Wafic Jezzini, who is known to have Berri's backing in his post.

Asked about a possible visit to Lebanon by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in the coming days, Berri said: "Welcoming her in Lebanon depends on the subject she is coming for."

I guarantee everyone, Condi is coming to further the agenda of Zionism which is the near half-century coverup of Zionist crimes against Jews, against Muslims and the world as a whole.

Franjieh dismissed criticism from (by) the Maronite Bishops Council this week of calls for a national unity government, "which would include true representatives of the Christians, whom the bishops think are not worthy of taking part in the authority."

TRANSLATION: This means that the Maronite Bishops are unwilling to consider the opinions of those Christians (particularly those of the mountain and southern areas) who support Nasrallah, his aims and know his history as the only leader in Lebanon that enjoys the status of not being a "genocidalist". To promote Saad Hariri and his "shady" visits to the Royalty of Fundie-ville (aka Saudi Arabia via Riyadh Wahhabism) is just another way of dressing a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Just because this (Saad Hariri) is the son of a popular assasinated leader, it does not mean anything about the power mongering the mutt is capable of. He is (a cultural mutt) and I have little doubt that Saad Hariri was raised with the rather liberal types of Saudi Royalty Mutt Breeders ala horseracing fame and drug fortunes.......and like all mutts of Imperial Pedigree, it is more important to look at "Nurture" versus "Nature" as in, Son of Hariri one, two, three and four. Long lines of Imperial mutt-dom in the incredibly fascinating story of how Islam came to be what it is today. A private doctrinal issue which is quite dangerous to expound on here...for me. But here it is...I say it anyway and with big apologies to those I love who live in the Majik Kingdom who may or may not understand the crisis they are involved in. So many have been lied to over the years, both lunar and solar.

Just like they(the Imperial US/Zionist Fomenters and Fermenters plus their little private organization known as the UN) used to harbor friendliness towards other dynasties: Oday and Qusay, the now quite dead sons of that "libertine" Saddam "The Devil" Hussein.*

*The devil isn't only in Missus Jones, it is in GWB and a number of so-called muslim leaders. It is also in the details of US interventionism and the doctrinal affairs of muslims worldwide, whom, btw, this bloody US war affects in ways that the INFIDELS (non believers in Islam) cannot or will not understand.

Most seem more satisfied to just sit back and say things like "Israel has had such a hard time defending herself," or the more popular "Let the muslims deal with it." Well, easier said than done when foreign interventionism is, at this point, at a level of there being NO POSSIBILITY of turning back.

Never has there been (since WWII) an issue that bears more watching or analysis than this one. For all people: Jews, Xtians, Athiests and of course, Koreans.

Now there is a problem! Myself, I tend to fear that fellow way more than even Israel. The leader of N. Korea is pushing the envelope and face it, this guy runs a country that is nothing but a protectorate of his ego problems. Short man syndrome, Napoleanic style. It is only too bad that when Bush labeled this Axis of Evil, he didn't do much research and only had a desire to put "someone else on there" so it wouldn't look like he was focusing undo emphasis on the evil nature of Iran.

Iran hasn't invaded anyone in centuries nor is it a country with a history of using an atomic bomb on anyone. It's only crime is the expulsion of the US/Zionist War Machine and her profiteers.

And what about Africa! Indeed. I only wish I knew more about the Congo other than to say a bit about what is happening in Liberia with that newly elected leader who is going to expel Lebanese businessmen out of that formerly (and still) Baptist protectorate in order to comply with Bush's war on Terror which, btw, is going to end up increasing poverty amongst the Lebanese but also, a decrease in legitimately imported goods to one of the needier countries on the planet. Sure, there are the dogs of business...they are everywhere you know. But the blind prohibition on the commerce of Arabs and muslims is going to result in MORE violence towards teh west, not less. And more black marketeering (Lili Marlene where are you when we need a nice rhyme!)....on the African continent only, the beneficiaries of that will be Christian fundies as opposed to er...relatively unparticipative muslim businessmen who are about as religious sometimes as Steven Spielberg.

On the Amish

You know, something really bothers me about this particular crime. And, it isn't because they are Amish.

It is because they ARE Amish.

You see, there hasn't been a report on this case in the media that doesn't focus on the fact that this happened to the AMISH. Well, yes. Things happen to little girls on the beach in Gaza and then, it is because they ARE Palestinian. And things happen to Jewish girls and they tend to treat it as if it happened to a Jewish girl. The label itself indicates some sort of relationship to the child's nationality or religion or social class.

The fact is folks:

This happened to little GIRLS. This is normal in the US and Europe anymore. This shouldn't be about their Amish-ness but about the fact that White Men are incredibly violent toward their womenfolk. They stalk them, harrass them, choke them and strangle them with babies inside of their uteruses. And you know what? It makes Iran look pretty darn docile.

In fact, I'll bet you that more than eight little girls are molested and raped every single day and some of them, killed. Some by their own fathers and uncles. Some by their neighbors.

This guy just lived close to the Amish and god only knows...fantasized about Amish girls the way some men fanticize about parochial skirts.

It isn't right to focus on their Amish-ness unless of course you do the math and realize, covering women in Islamic countries is not really a big crime at all. It is for their protection. And sure, rape and molestation, incest do happen in Islamic countries. But I've never seen it happen this way...such a public display of hostility towards chaste women. That is just AWFUL. And the truth is, almost all little girls are chaste regardless of their religion. Unless of course, they are raised like animals by animals...which is way too often in this country and has become a type of entertainment, the social diseases of the "underclass" on shows like Jerry Springer..it is reveled in and literally, people are paid to perform on TV...everything from young women who sleep with their stepfathers to young women proud to defy their mothers and become prostitutes and lap dancers.

But you see, this same sort of resentment plays out every day in the media which treats covered muslim women as somehow "defficient" in a sociological sense. In fact, a few reporters have even singled out the Amish as being somehow negligent in their refusal to adopt American consumeristic habits...the herd habits of cellular phones and fire drills to ward off the unexpected, the terror, that so-called 'fear' of death.
This in turn leads to an overall sense of community over-indulgence in stereotyping of the worst sort and then, of the sort they 'think' is somehow good. You see it in the struggle to TRY to define WHY it was the Amish and not someone else...there must be a reason. I think there is a reason and it is rooted in the culture itself.

Have no doubt: This happened to girls. Not the Amish and not the Kurds. This is one of America's biggest shams and shames: the equality of women. Followed very closely by if not equal to the sham called racial equality. There is no such thing in this country. It is devoid of meaning anymore to say equality in Americanese. It is obliterated by the stereotyping of people based on color, gender and religion.

Truly, it is a telling picture of Americana to watch the "mostly white/mostly male" reporters do this act. The reporters should be asking: Why are we killing our most chaste types of women, little girls?

What is the meaning of that type of sociological anger that has become so widespread as to practically reflect a new norm?

My prayers go out to those families, Amish or otherwise.

Guidebook for Female Poets (a specific 'type' of poet in the subcategory of 'all' poets) in blogging their little hearts out...how not to become your own pejorative:

1. Be brave.
2. Be able to take it like a man. Do not be ashamed to take it like a man.
3. Avoid using the "I" word overly much in your posts. You sound just like your self absorbed male counterparts.
4. Reach out and read something OTHER than poetry. Try a newspaper, for instance.
5. Learn how to call a spade a spade.
6. Know how to apologize.
7. Do not trust self absorbed male poets with your beliefs, valuables or life work.
8. Do not cat fight.
9. Stand in line, wait your turn. If you can't say something intelligent, please by all means, shut up. Try not to make the rest of us look lame brained.
10. Avoid taking pictures of your ass and attaching them to your poems.
11. When men are behaving histrionically, tell them so in no uncertain terms.
12. If a male ever dares to censor your honest efforts to explain something to him that he is either ignorant of or has displayed a curiously unbalanced view about, ditch him and anyone associated with him.
13. http://www.billdobbins.com/PUBLIC/pages/coolfree/bbsport_folder/musclebound.htm

*On Hell

When telling a male to go to hell, make sure to be very careful. If you are like me and actually believe in hell, the male tends to take it to heart and explode in furious bursts of rage.

I scared myself when I saw everything close up.





The country had no confidence, there were interlopers.



We wore the haircuts of the lonely.





Sometimes, the smiles were successful.





We wore slacks to the Big Apple as often as we could,






the machinery was soothing but the cost was very high.

Tangle Vine

Tangle Vine
Originally uploaded by radiann.

Allah Akbar!



John
by Edgar Bowers


Before he wrote a poem, he learned the measure
That living in the future gives a farm--
Propinquity of mules and cows, the charmed
Insouciance of hens, the fellowship,
At dawn, of seed-time and of harvest-time.
But when high noon gave way to evening, and
The fences lay, bent shadows, on the crops
And pastures to the yellowing trees, he felt
The presences he felt when, over rocks,
Through pools and where it wears the bank, the stream
Ran bright and dark at once, itself its shadow;
And suffered, in all he knew, the antagonists
Related in the Bible, in himself
And every new condition from the beginning,
As in the autumn leaf and summer prime.
Therefore he chose to live the only game
Worthy of repetition, in the likeness
Of someone like himself, a race of which
He was the changing distances and ground,
The runners, and the goal that runs away
Forever into time; or like two players
At odds in white and black, their dignities
Triumphs refused or losses unredeemed.
For the one, that it be ever of the pure
Intention that he witnessed in the high
Stained windows of King's Chapel--ancestral stories,
The old above the new, like pages shining
From an essential book--he taught his mind
To imitate the meditation, sovereign
In verse and prose, of those who shared with him
Intelligence of beauty, good, and truth
As one, unchanging and unchangeable,
Disinterested excitement through a sentence
Their joy and passion. For the other, as
A venturer asleep, he went among
The voiceless and unvisionary many--
Like one who offers blood to know his fate
Or hold his twin again--deep in the midnight
Baths of New Orleans, on its plural beds
And on the secret banks beside its river,
The many who, anonymous as he was,
Uncannily resembled him, appearing
Immortal in a finitude of mirrors.

But when the sudden force of the disease
Tossed him, in a new garment, on the bed
Where he had wakened, mornings, as a child--
Despised by all the neighbors, helpless, blind
And vulnerable to every life, he listened
Intensely to the roosters, mules and cows
As well as to the voices of the desk,
The chair, the books and pictures, pastures and fields,
The tree of every season, the age of seas
And, on its surge, the age of galaxies,
The bells within the spires of Cambridge, bodies
And faces revealed or hidden in the flow,
All that we knew or could imagine joined
Together in the sound the stream flows through
As witness of itself in every change,
Each trusting in its continuities,
All turning in a final radiant shell.
Then, on his darkened eye, he saw himself
A compact disk awhirl, played by the light
He came from and was ready to reenter,
But not before he chose the way to go.
And so it was, before his death, he spoke
The poem that is his best, the final letter
To take to that old country as a passport.

The Keys to Nablus:

Sources in the West Bank and Gaza established that the number detained by the weekend of March 27 had exceeded 13,000. Bassam Shaka’a, deposed Mayor of Nablus, placed the total held solely in a hastily constructed barbed-wire encampment at Dhariyah at 10,000. (1988)

Few if any gringos remember the encampments in Southern Lebanon...hundreds of men camped throughout the freezing winter there....Palestinians forced out of Israel.

In the Balata camp outside Nablus, and in the Casbah – the old quarter – l,000 people were arrested in a period of 48 hours. The discovery of people in ditches in the fields – shot in the back or with their heads caved in – has been reported from villages throughout the West Bank and Gaza.

Fleets of helicopters fly over Nablus at night dropping a dense, green toxic gas over the city. The smell pervades every house. Armed units fire canisters of the substance into houses at random. Doctors at Ittihad Hospital reported several deaths and severe lung injuries from this as-yet unidentified asphyxiating chemical, totally distinct from tear gas. ?Saddam Hussein, where are you!

Armed with 30-inch wooden clubs and urged by their prime minister to “put the fear back into the Arabs”, Israeli soldiers have methodically beaten up Palestinians since early January, deliberately breaking bones and beating prisoners into unconsciousness. Casualties included not only young men ... but also women. Most of the injured shunned hospitals for fear of arrest.

Oh, the list is soooooooo long and the memory of some is not only short, but completely missing.

The hopes of Europe’s six million Jews are centered on emigration. I was asked: “Can you bring six million Jews to Palestine?” I replied, “No.” ... From the depths of the tragedy I want to save ... young people [for Palestine]. The old ones will pass. They will bear their fate or they will not. They are dust, economic and moral dust in a cruel world ... Only the branch of the young shall survive. They have to accept it. [87] Chaim Weizmann, First President of Israel and arbitrator of the Balfour Declaration. This is what I meant when I said, all the good ones are dead. You see, the Zionists leaders traded LAND for JEWS...to the Nazis. It is a point they deny and obscure TO THIS DAY. Shameful. See them as they have lit a "fire all around" themselves? I continue to invite Jews to Islam on a weekly basis, here and elsewhere....where Jihad increases views by 20-40 per day.

Israeli Invasion of LebanonOn Sunday, June 6, 1982, at 5:30 a.m., intensive aerial bombardment began with the onset of the invasion. The Israelis took Ain El Helweh as a grid, using a saturation-bombing pattern in a series of quadrants. First one quadrant was subjected to carpet-bombing and then the next-methodically and relentlessly, the bombing of each quadrant renewed as the last was levelled. The bombing continued in this manner for ten days and nights. Cluster bombs, concussion bombs, high flaring incendiary bombs and white phosphorus were used.

???Is it any wonder that Sayyed Nasrallah refuses to be disarmed or give in to the vile objectives of occupying Lebanon up to the Litani River? Is it that some disbelieve that this is still a long term Zionist goal? Think again, the Zionists are not only patient but due to the horrible silence of the world, they have inevitably been successful. Their days are now numbered regardless of their victories. This type of thing always fails as it should. It is evil.

Untitled/Undated

Someone announces there are jackals in Tel Aviv,
just for saying Jerusalem.

The key to the cities: Beirut and Nablus,
were purchased long ago while you slept
in Long Island.

A journalist fumbles in his pants
for his keys and a lead,
watches Arab children razed,
toilet trained too young on empty cans
carried room to room with the burghul;
it fell in older times from mud kitchen walls,
silos of sand in sand,
dispensing traces of brothers
fallen into wells full with grain.

You in a photograph of a boy
pointing into the deep of the old village house,
the place where you sunk forever.

http://www.marxists.de/middleast/schoenman/

The International Dog
(for Radical Ann)

There's a whole lot of work
going on in the grass
where the dog lies down with-
out a fear or care in the world.
He just keeps lapping up the sun,
living on borrowed time in charity.
No one can own that dog, no
one can interpret his special glances,
the bees scarcely know he is alive.
The sky withers throughout his days there.
Nothing makes a difference to the dog now.
He just finds a new way to sleep
and five thousand ways to roll around,
loll his tongue out and makes
his own promises, a stranger to the law.
They are all the same.

.....a good friend sent this along to me. I thought it was pretty cool.

The Doctrinaires

I will show you fear in a handful of dust. - The Wasteland

Invocation: This Work I Dedicate to all True Theosophists, In every Country,
And of every Race, For they called it forth, and for them it was recorded.
- THE SECRET DOCTRINE:THE SYNTHESIS OFSCIENCE, RELIGION, AND PHILOSOPHY by H. P. BLAVATSKY, (18 odd something).

" . . . It is a sottish presumption to disdaine and condemne that for false, which unto us seemeth to beare no show of likelihood or truth: which is an ordinarie fault in those who persuade themselves to be of more sufficiencie than the vulgar sort." Montaigne, from Blavatsky


Who is it that suffers the great
djinn fevers, cast off wedges of heat
from the maker of all warmths and favors?
Few survive the tempestuous drownings
backlogged, obscure in the mad-minded
focus, the cruel and hearty bone-diggers.
Escaping tragedy on each leg,
carrying every burden to the top,
they wait as progeny do, traitors to the end.
The foolishness of numbers, languages
and spot-checks, dramas of ascetic generations
scanning for the manifestations, cropping up.
It is a map of purgatory, they desire a way out
without the justice of asking, pleading
for patience and thirsty as lions.

Two doors.

Standers and waiters. Banner wavers, four. Jeweled courtesans.
The advertisements of heaven and hell
seen between the crushed shoulders
of the walking revival, troups wandering between
mountains, through valleys and into the deep seas,
mother Mary had her inclinations, recollections.
What a show that is seen, what a problem!
How the red of dreams is graphed again in red.
Saint Vitus in a limp stampede, race on! to
a devil in every room playing with the mirrors.

Poisons and paradises, opulent rivers above
as wide as the shores of all the seas -
the tiny maps of Gorge, as plain as day -
to taste that water is to drink. To really drink
for the first time in the eons, sealed wine
of pearl augur, aged in casks of unknown depth.
To stud the cacti with the worm
provoke the dehydration of dementia, they try to lie.

Only one cartographer has the archaica,
knows the brocade language of the fish
which shines in their skin under
the broad white road upon the sea
where some could walk, some
others could see, and those that had to,
built boats on which to flee.
Then they are the pretenders, the mocked mockers.
Salt licked paths from underwater plateaus
constant in their undertow and taking.
The bargain of rain on the tumble of soil.
Split open dry canal of the ancients,
the forgotten tongue-tied sooth
whose feet felt the mighty flow below,
the source of constant consternation,
to advance the best orations, the stock of futures
after the crowing of stones revealed: a gadget.
One big story after another, the sun sets, rises.
A big gap, light flux, curved broadbands
in the age of pirates, blue ox and steel.

Scorpion. Tiger. The year of our Lord.
Squawk-boxes of the forefathers, Topaz keepers.
No one gets out of this alive, labels perish.

Anatomy seekers and keepers, burial
experts and detectives, the borrowing of heads.
To examination tables and paintings,
the record keeping chronologers, pagans
priests and profiteers, bullies and geniuses.
The cadre of promise-takers and peace-makers,
hoteliers and pimps, giant-sketchers...

facilitators of the worst sort.
Forget what it is they make you say.
The drivers offer no solace for the unwise.
To the map-maker we must return -
naked, alone, worse for wear.

Not bad D. I thought it had a bit of that TS Eliot ring to it.

Heaven on Earth, A slice of heaven, Heaven Can Wait:

http://www.isrotel.co.il/English/Content/carmelforestspa_intro.html?agent_ca

...pamper yourselves! Uh, er...is the violin music playing in your ears yet?

...cha ching!

http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/news/nation/15633964.htm

Naughty Naughty Naughty!

The Tiny Gap

The worry that goes into
showing up on time
or late, then never, isn't
what folks call pleasant.
The windows are open and tended
in the constant trail birds leave
behind, strings and theories
in the patience of clear
blue skies forever. It ought
not be disturbed anymore
than one has to, it
is enough for the time-being,
there are too many aches
and pinches already.
The hopeful cancellations
when change winks
at the clocks, vary
over the stories one is told.
This one says one thing and that
one says another until the sky
calls children home for the evening,
it's alright now - come on in.
The day is over and there are
many beds to fill, our eyes to close,
the morning is just hours away.

A Short Short Story

In the history of sideshows,
the bearded lady stands out,
the midget, the less than satisfactory.
The twins with different prints,
Arbus to fingertip reconstructions.
Born that way they say,
just born all wrong and different.
We've been this way forever,
just an afterthought to your perfections.

Lorine Niedecker's "Folk Base" and Her Challenge to the American Avant-Garde


http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/niedecker/middle.html

Niedecker was certainly chary of the distortions produced by the contextualisation of poetry by school or group. Near the end of her career there are distinct signs in the letters that she wanted to distance herself from Objectivism, notably concerning the Objectivist issue of Contemporary Literature because it seemed to encourage a superficial set of relationships between poets:

"there is the talking about each other's poetry that bothers me a little....it's literary criticism but all the same a little also like gossip!" )Faranda 193).

Warning: This is a horrible video of the BEACH massacres that motivated my untimely commentary defining ZIONISM.

This kind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVAvm8wwTpw

Ya mama, yamama, ya ma ma, ya ma ma.....

This isn't propaganda. This is reality in Palestine. Happy Ramadan Palestine. America loves you to the BONE.

October 5th, resistance marches across the US:

http://worldcantwait.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2418&_event=14

Country Wide "General Strike" (at lunchtime of course and after work, hmm)

Locally:

Tucson, AZ
2006-10-05 [edit]12 pm to 1 pmUniversity of Arizona MallRally from noon to 1:00then from430 pm into the night at the Federal Building swoods@email.arizona.edu


This is great. I may even attend the 4:30 but you know what? If this was in an OPPRESSED country, the strike would last all day, perhaps several. THAT is the ticket.

The Muqawama has touched the infidels!

To call the Pot or the Kettle:

http://www.worldcantwait.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2682&Itemid=223#demsonlebanon

....black.

Milk is White, Love is Black

You remember the place...the cartoons on the wall, the orange metaphysical carpeting. The coffee and the counter.Of course, you weren't there and neither was I really...just sort of watching from on top of some pregnant woman's stomach. She kept knocking into the ketchup bottles on her way to and from the tables...bathroom, table, bathroom.

You wouldn't remember Albert either, the mathematician who would only drink the first cup from a pot (shiny Bunn machine) and only then, if you filled his cup to the brim, a pathetic meniscus. He followed me all the way over to the place on the other side of the main drag when Sambo's closed down, to Coco's. He'd offer me rides home after the bar rush. How he hated prostitution and all. It was acceptable of course until I noticed the plates from Corvalis. Wasn't the Green River up there somewhere? Beside the point I imagine.

To make a short story long it ought to be mentioned about the Black Family who used to frequent the Lyric once in a while. Not for Camelot but for things like Car Wash and Young Frankenstein. I never actually saw them there, too small to notice (I was) but I knew that they existed, the Love Family. There he is, Leon Love waiting by his Chevy Nova for Cinda. Cinda of the Michals family, the Ozarkians. They had the long house just across the ditch, an old mortuary. We'd go over there to visit Rinda, the gangliest of the girls: Rinda, Linda, Brenda, Minda, Glenda and of course, their brother Jim. Wanda Michals sure was fertile. I suppose all Ozarkians are and I suppose Cinda and Leon were a source of holy consternation. Not as much so as Mitzy the Pekinese bitch that ripped my sole from heel to toe when I ran down the ladder and across the low brow living room. We'd been peeking into the attic trying to see the fancy old coffin up there. Again, all beside the point.

There wasn't any coffin up there, just a big old box.

In about 1976 or 77 a strange thing happened in the village. Two hundred gospel singers in pleated skirts and bobby socks moved out onto a ranch in Miracle Valley. Of course the men wore Bible Thumper outfits: thin ties and small collars, dark slacks with perfect creases. The girl's legs against their pastel skirts reminded me of curtains at night and one of them, Carol, told me she couldn't be my friend anymore because I was white. This was near the choir room and we were the only sopranoes. Then it was all about Jimmy Judd and Chuck Eads and a bomb that went off in someone's lap on their way to Sorry Vista. That's about all I know save for the memory of how it all looked on National TV. No one could see me back there near the choir room with Carol and her looking nervous as hell.

Anyways, as I always say when I'm remembering something funny.

Sunday afternoons were always dead at Sambos up in Phoenix. Jenni was already on her bike heading home. She held a monopoly on breakfast and would pocket a hundred bucks to my twenty every single day, even though I was poor AND pregnant. Sundays though, she'd do a hundred and fifty. Just because she'd lapse into one of those mini comas of hers and start scribbling all over the order for bacon and eggs. All because she was sick. She could have taken Dilantin but she was afraid she'd give her nonexistant kids birth defects. Hmph.

So one day I came around the corner, my favorite corner where I'd just poured a very tall, very cold glass of restaurant milk. Can't say poured really when you talk about a milk lever...it's more like a mechanical milking machine and froths from the huge silicon bags just like the milk is coming out of a teet. I was pregnant then and drank alot of it. I came around that corner, scanned the empty booths lit by that hard four o'clock Phoenix sun through the mini-blinds and saw them pulling and pushing on the door, eight of them. Well dressed. Very black. Not just black but very black. So black that all I could see was the big orchids on their dresses.

They seated themselves, no need for uppity behavior at a Little Black Sambos and I suppose they thought they'd save the poor pregnant waitress a few steps. Even picked up their own menus.

So to make this story about the Michals, the Loves and Carol a bit shorter I'll cut to the chase. It isn't about the artwork here...it's about the curious nature of being Black. Of seeing Black for the first time.

The ordering started. At that time, 1981 or 82 did I say? You could order fried chicken at Little Black Sambos. Not only could you order it, but you could split it up any way you liked. Four pieces...wings, legs, backs (if one was so inclined), breasts, necks (stretching the truth here). So I got the first four orders and waited on four more before asking the question, the hundred dollar question. Four more orders of fried chicken. I wasn't thinking about Fried Chicken really, nor had I ever been told about Watermelon. I just wasn't told at all, we didn't mention that sort of thing at home unless we were asked and that was never, it just never came up. Kind of like kids aren't taught economics except in those classes in High School where they teach you how to write checks and pay bills. Dummy-math we used to call it.

"Do you want all white or black..er...brown...er dark...meat?"

The words just floated into the center of that booth like a bunch of flower petals.

Stunned Black Silence.

Bright White Teeth.

Curtains Against Night.

Boy, did they ever start laughing. Not one at a time but like a choir. Laughed and laughed and laughed.

A hundred dollar tip. After certain apologies. I suppose they understood. I didn't have to explain like Jenni did all the time about her Petit Mal.

They knew mine was a Grand.

A Brief History of Time

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rehavam_Zeevi

Most poets cannot spell the name let alone know of the significance of that old assassination...so long ago now. I remember it well. Ah. It made sense, the collaborative sensation of keeping "Arafat" in protective custody (which is all Ramallah ever was, a propaganda trick which hid a darker side of Israeli-Arab politics and power mongering). The Bills, the Bobs and the Marys..or as is the case here: the Hobeikas, the Hariris and the Ze'evis....of the world.

A bit about this "lion" of Zion:

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/print.php3?what=news&id=98944

Everyone enjoys a good mafia story and the story of Zionism is one of the Greatest Stories Ever Told:

Naughty Naughty Naughty!

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=99889

One must ask, did Abu Mazen (Abbas) like the idea of transfers also? Forget the rhetoric of an Iranian simpleton like Ahmadinijad! One would hope that Abbas wouldn't like someone like Olmert or, would refuse to let notorious felons out on the loose, particularly with Big Brother USA watching over the process so closely (pretending all the while to be ignorant of the principle players and their mafia roles REGARDLESS of what is "supposed to be" their religious affiliation: Monotheism via Judaic or Islamic precepts and contentions).

It was never a wonder to me why Elie Hobeika was assassinated either. It wasn't because of Sharon...like Nasrallah pointed out during the first days of this "Israeli bargaining chip offered to their contentious fanatics" i.e. the Lebanese Hate Crime called an "incursion"....everyone knew what Sharon was...some even respected his strategic prowess including Nasrallah even if Sharon is a notorious war criminal. How many self help books and gurus on the frontlines of American Businessmanism tell you exactly that: Respect your opponent. ????? Most, if not all.

What is most telling about this wave of deception, terror and protectionism? It is and must be answered again, with a question.

Was the Lebanese War Crime a way of Olmert making good on his pledge towards honoring his Zionist supporters and intentions in the aftermath of "allowing" known assassins to simply walk out of the "Ramallah" compound (the ruse of 'attacking' Arafat, who is known to have enriched himself with US/Zionist payoffs is really just a ruse to keep the assassins of Ze'evi in a low security facility under the watchful eye of who? The Devil.)...was that just another deal in the long and winding trail of dealmaking? The fact that Osama was "let loose" by Clinton and a variety of others who well understood the threat the man was to public security, especially the Shi'i of Afghanistan.

One has to ask that question and one has to have a long memory to pull Ze'evi out of a hat, like a trick. Or a Hobeika.

Happy Valentine's Day Lebanon and if you don't accept that invitation to Civil War, we'll just give you a bigger one.

The least thing however that a conscientious observer to all of this can gain is the knowledge that the Palestinians are not simply refusing Abbas' deal, but refusing another Arafat in the making. Sadly enough, no one is applauding them in their resistance to this type of meddling. No one understands the cause nor the solution it seems. They just don't care.

Oh what a tangled web that was woven!.....an even longer memory for the nine released ones....the list of "one eyes" and that sort of thing is here:

http://www.al-huda.com/NB%20SM19.htm

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/766884.html

Rodney King er....well, not quite.

Since October 2000, another 20 Arab citizens have been shot and killed by security forces. The most recent of the victims, Mahmoud Ghanaiyem, a young man in his 20s from Baka al-Gharbiyeh, was shot point blank in the head in July after being suspected of stealing a vehicle. This was also the case in many other instances, in which Arab citizens suspected of criminal activity were sentenced to death by a bullet aimed at the upper part of their bodies and sometimes their heads.

So, Lebanon gets the gift of a UN force.

Why hasn't anyone given that gift to the starving victims of Israeli atrocities in Gaza?

Israel. Never allows that sort of 'witnessing' to take place. Interesting eh?

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/766431.html

Nasrallah on NPR:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6126073

"I could see grown men crying just to see him." Leena Saidi, Beirut journalist

The Ode of Migrations

We are parts of a billion
they keep telling us, I do
not believe. Birds know this
caution, sadness still calls
itself a failure for finding
a home here. This is a small
town, the people have
their off days and re-runs,
the dogs bark contagiously
during the rest and cat naps
are shorter when sirens
disrupt the pleasantries.

The cicada frames noon time
in a halo of hissing to emphasize
the problems of silence,
for example and comparison.

Those are sheets on the fence,
they are full of sin and thicket.
How quickly they dry in summer,
how they neglect time.

Where is this death they talk about?
Will poppies or lilacs revive us all
as they revive themselves so
the wind can distribute our worries?

He isn't awake yet and when I sleep
he is eating and thinking about this
condition where no one goes
anymore. Spiders find a place
in the dark, housekeepers at heart,
one shows up each and every time.

The bird nest up there is ours
for today - even if it is stolen.
Look how well built, it is!

they, the other ones,
those two

checked on it andleft
in shame: adobe, right hand corner -

no eggs or anxiety could hold them
back, they just turned away and flew.

Byzantium

One night late in April a person realizes
they've been allowed into the throne room
to dissect all the crowns, find their hiding places.
It isn't known really when admission was granted
but there it is in the locked box,
the keys in several paintings done well
by the obvious European Masters who were
all already there, knew it was coming
and knew who would be there.

The toys on their heads are reminders
of all the rulers of all the universes
studded in emerald and (I've got it right here)
not the Kasiki which was found in the refuse
and sold for three spoons. The actual remedy
spells moonlight in light when no one is noticing.
But look at the toys on their heads, who knew?
Who knows now? Quite obviously, the creators
of the Lion and Sun Medals, one in particular
of stunning quality, the sun leaning on the lion's back.

By sheer luck a person runs into another person
outside the armory and well outside the outer
courtyard of two inner places. (The second
for ceremonial purposes and the finest in the back
contains the lillypad pool under the gazebo.)
That person happens to be no other than a specific guest
at the ancient table of numbers. He counts beads
as fast as one counts anything at all but remembers
which university in Byzantium is doing all the work.
He hasn't any news of the elimination of the signal work
at the top of a good portion of 'it'. He must have
seen the sun dial, the mini complex which was transported
on a horse wh;ose face held human qualities to the Baghdad campaigns.
The most fantastic mirrored parabola on record and to date.
Inconspicuously placed outdoors in the rain and the person is
from the labyrinths where the Minotaur was last seen in frescoe.

Two large candlesticks of solid gold were removed to Byzantium
prior to the onset of trench and mustard, to protect
the vast empire from the final conquest after Smyrna.
Saved. For a while. After final consultations,
one person bids the other adieu, they exchange calling cards
and know for some reason all is not well
and the trains only run on time if those that do, will it so.
The two of them completely undisturbed because of pious behaviors
although one of them almost followed to the brink that day
when met at the final stop by three burly youths.
All the uncertainty in the world led them to believe the person
was a spy. And the second? Believes the reformer was never born.
The first tells him the story of Rasputin. They part.
Closing important meetings never easy and time only follows more time.


Meetings in general:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/766699.html

Greeks bearing gifts:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/766430.html

The Pope and his Mossad: Opus Dei in Lebanon.

http://www.lebanese-forces.org/vbullet/showthread.php?p=31465

Cinematographer's nightmare if you ask me. Guess they are the ones who banned the Da Vinci Code in Lebanon so us poor muslims couldn't read it. Damn. Life is strange.

Now, I've no problem with Clinton at the tomb of the Patriarchs nor do I have a problem with the Pope doing this sort of thing either. My problem is with the Zionist Regime's desire to install a Christian Minority as Dictator over a de facto and majority Muslim country. THAT is what ought to bother every thinking individual.

PICKTHAL: And the Jews say the Christians follow nothing (true), and the Christians say the Jews follow nothing (true); yet both are readers of the Scripture. Even thus speak those who know not. Allah will judge between them on the Day of Resurrection concerning that wherein they differ.